Joshua Tree National Park is a desert park northeast of Palm Springs and south of Twenty-Nine Palms, sandwiched between I-10 and CA 62. Palm Springs is a glitzy weekend community for Hollywood types, Twenty Nine Palms is a Marine Corps town.
My Dad, my brother and I went out there a few weekends ago to hang out together, do a little hiking and take photos of wildflowers, which were blooming like crazy in the southern part of the park this particular weekend. JTNP has always been a favorite local destination of mine; it is renown for its rock climbing and its Joshua Trees, from which of course it got its name. It's about a 4 hour drive from Los Angeles, about 3 to 3.5 hours from my house.
We drove out to the southern end of the park, parked along the side of the road along with a few other cars and wandered into a flower-rich field. My Dad and I both enjoy photography and my Dad seems to have specialized in botany photos so this was a good reason to get together, spend some time road tripping and taking photos. I used my Canon 10D with my Tamron 18-200 F 3.5/6.3 lens.
My brother pointed out the lizard on this rock.
Purple lupine.
Mountain off in the distance
The desert doesn't bloom like this every year; we had a fairly wet winter and had some rains into March which is unusual. It was this combination that triggered the large masses of flowers this year. Next month the cacti will bloom.
Field of purple lupine
The Joshua Tree National Park website claims there are about 80 species of flowers blooming out there right now (or were, the season is very short and is ending now, about a month after it began).
This is probably my favorite landscape shot from this trip; purple lupine, canterbury bells and lots and lots of brittlebush and golden poppies.
Sunset at the Barker Dam parking lot.
A Joshua Tree silhouetted against the sunset.
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